alternatehistory.com
McCain Administration- Spring 2013
Spring 2013
"Why are some people getting worked up over the Arms Trade Treaty?"
"All those people in Bangladesh..."
"Well, Venezuela changed everything..."
While the Korean Crisis caught the attention of the newsmedia and of the general public of the world in general, matters continued on. Economic recovery was going at a mixed pace and as time go on, people are becoming more aware of the institutions that led to the economic failure and the sluggish recovery. The changing dynamics of foreign policies has been forcing new approaches and solutions given everything that happened the past decade. However, one of the big news of the Spring beyond just the events of North Korea was on the United Nations General Assembly adopting the Arms Trade Treaty to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons. The ATT is an attempt to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons for the purpose of contributing to international and regional peace; reducing human suffering; and promoting co-operation, transparency, and responsible action by and among states. While many people cheer and applaud for it, especially given the past successes with the McCain Administration to deal with foreign affairs, there was some people making a fuss about it in regards to national sovereignty or independent rights though the whole thing was based on international affairs. While organizations like the NRA and Hertiage Foundation were trying to make out the issues in it, it also began revealing cracks within the Republican establishment. School shootings remain a provactive topic after the issue on gun rights was settled years prior within the Supreme Court, but that did not stop certain organizations from trying to get past it. Granted of course came counter-arguments on how the Second Amendment doesn't protect rights for gun purchases and furthermore there was a growing frustration with them. The Hertiage Foundation especially, given the Gore Administration's legislation along with McCain's have led to their decline in relevance as culture began shifting and they were becoming less relevant and thus, becoming more desperate to remain important. While they would sign it, ratification details remained unknown for it in the US. Though one note was in the questioning of how much money goes into the military and lobbying on part of firearms manufacturers.
Matej Marn, Deputy Permanent Representative of Slovenia signing the treaty at the Arms Trade Treaty At United Nations headquarters
However, not everything was right in the world unfortunately. The 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse (also referred to as the 2013 Savar building collapse or the Rana Plaza collapse) was a structural failure that occurred on 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building alive. The deadliest structural failure accident in modern human history and the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, it was a colossal wake-up call for people in regards to terrible working conditions, something that perhaps resonated more painfully in the later parts of the Great Recession. Riots happened across the cities over at factories with horrific safety conditons. Leftist politcal parties and nationalist parties of Bangladesh set aside differences to demand arrests, investigations and accountability behind the colossal disaster. This became especially prominent on International Workers' Day as more workers and their supporters came out on May 1st. Across the world, such sentiment spread like wildfire. Over across Europe, leftist political parties notified their supporters and the public on the importance of where they make their purchases and buy their clothing as well as well as pushing new legislation over for higher pay and better working conditions. Even the Pope himself went out to speak against the modern interpretation of slave labor at them along with human rights advocacy groups. The McCain Administration was among the groups demanding for action, but the ordeal also began spreading across them. Many people took the opportunity to remind of the importance of safety rules, of legislation for oversight and safety, the sanctity of human life and perhaps more brazenly, outing groups or individuals who's idealogies threaten these safety standards and groups, such as the laundry list of desires of the Koch candidate during their Libretarian campaign decades prior. Social media became a colossal juggernaut in this event as musicians, bloggers, video makers and content creators began discussing their own thoughts and views, especially as the story unfolded. One of the biggest shocks was the comparison of this to the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that happened in Greenwich more than a century prior. The parallels were disturbing and became a brutal indictment of the modern age of how such tragedies count happen in the pursuit of capitalism and many leftist politicians, most notably Senator Sanders, spoke heavily on the comparisons between the two, the improvements that would be done and the blame resting on the greedy. The seeming resentment at the 1% got an immense injection of fresh anger with the comparisons drawn out.
Rescuers carrying out one of the survivors from the collapsed building
While the incident galavanized the leftist elements of the world and the people, other element proceeded to send them and the rest of the world into a tizzy. That of the death of Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez back in March. From an infection, his death left a power void within Venezuela and it could not have come at a worse time for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. They have been gradually losing influence over the past several years. After the Exxon-Mobil scandal forced a confrontation on the issues of climate change and fossil fuels, the world has been trying to react in different ways to it, especially nations who's primary source of income were fossil fuels. Venezuela in particular would be having to deal with this. Ever since the discovery of the vast petrol supplies in Venezuela, they became the primary export of the South American nation and Chavez used that to fund strong social programs and reforms for the nation. Of course, having such a thing alongside with various potential problems meant Venezuela was easily a balancing act. The Ecological Movement of Venezuela, a green-based party in the nation, began rising in prominence as they advocated for promoting renewable engery and sustainable agriculture, especially as "going green" became more internationally mandated. The failure of the GPP to address this in Venezuela led to serious growing divides and growing exasperation with them. As such, some looked it with some but not alot of surprise in the elections of 2013, which saw Henrique Capriles would beat Nicolás Maduro getting around 5% of the vote more than him. Unsurprisingly, this rocked the nation and Maduro along with the Chavistas did not take this defeat well. Furthermore, the fact that the strict rules around the elections that Chavez prided himself on meant that speaking against it would be insulting him. Maduro's attempts at leading attacks against him through homophobia and antisemitism would end up diminishing him and his group's reputation among leftists. As such, Maduro's popularity plummeted further down, leading to large fractures with the group, with Jorge Arreaza and Diosdado Cabello becoming prominent alternates against Maduro. Capriles along with his key supporters and officials he installed were unable to leave Venezuela though is considered the acting President by most of the nations in the world. Perhaps more surprisingly was the hesitation of nations like Bolivia and Cuba to recognize the legitimacy of the Maduro government. Despite the anti-imperialist sentiment, Maduro did lose and the instability of the party along with a failure to address issues within the nation regarding economic policy have caused them to reconsider support. Russia meanwhile just doubled down on support while China withheld from the decision though rumors speculate they are leaning toward recognizing the Capriles government.
Henrique Capriles Radonski, Acting President of Venezuela.
"Why are some people getting worked up over the Arms Trade Treaty?"
"All those people in Bangladesh..."
"Well, Venezuela changed everything..."
While the Korean Crisis caught the attention of the newsmedia and of the general public of the world in general, matters continued on. Economic recovery was going at a mixed pace and as time go on, people are becoming more aware of the institutions that led to the economic failure and the sluggish recovery. The changing dynamics of foreign policies has been forcing new approaches and solutions given everything that happened the past decade. However, one of the big news of the Spring beyond just the events of North Korea was on the United Nations General Assembly adopting the Arms Trade Treaty to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons. The ATT is an attempt to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons for the purpose of contributing to international and regional peace; reducing human suffering; and promoting co-operation, transparency, and responsible action by and among states. While many people cheer and applaud for it, especially given the past successes with the McCain Administration to deal with foreign affairs, there was some people making a fuss about it in regards to national sovereignty or independent rights though the whole thing was based on international affairs. While organizations like the NRA and Hertiage Foundation were trying to make out the issues in it, it also began revealing cracks within the Republican establishment. School shootings remain a provactive topic after the issue on gun rights was settled years prior within the Supreme Court, but that did not stop certain organizations from trying to get past it. Granted of course came counter-arguments on how the Second Amendment doesn't protect rights for gun purchases and furthermore there was a growing frustration with them. The Hertiage Foundation especially, given the Gore Administration's legislation along with McCain's have led to their decline in relevance as culture began shifting and they were becoming less relevant and thus, becoming more desperate to remain important. While they would sign it, ratification details remained unknown for it in the US. Though one note was in the questioning of how much money goes into the military and lobbying on part of firearms manufacturers.
Matej Marn, Deputy Permanent Representative of Slovenia signing the treaty at the Arms Trade Treaty At United Nations headquarters
However, not everything was right in the world unfortunately. The 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse (also referred to as the 2013 Savar building collapse or the Rana Plaza collapse) was a structural failure that occurred on 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building alive. The deadliest structural failure accident in modern human history and the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, it was a colossal wake-up call for people in regards to terrible working conditions, something that perhaps resonated more painfully in the later parts of the Great Recession. Riots happened across the cities over at factories with horrific safety conditons. Leftist politcal parties and nationalist parties of Bangladesh set aside differences to demand arrests, investigations and accountability behind the colossal disaster. This became especially prominent on International Workers' Day as more workers and their supporters came out on May 1st. Across the world, such sentiment spread like wildfire. Over across Europe, leftist political parties notified their supporters and the public on the importance of where they make their purchases and buy their clothing as well as well as pushing new legislation over for higher pay and better working conditions. Even the Pope himself went out to speak against the modern interpretation of slave labor at them along with human rights advocacy groups. The McCain Administration was among the groups demanding for action, but the ordeal also began spreading across them. Many people took the opportunity to remind of the importance of safety rules, of legislation for oversight and safety, the sanctity of human life and perhaps more brazenly, outing groups or individuals who's idealogies threaten these safety standards and groups, such as the laundry list of desires of the Koch candidate during their Libretarian campaign decades prior. Social media became a colossal juggernaut in this event as musicians, bloggers, video makers and content creators began discussing their own thoughts and views, especially as the story unfolded. One of the biggest shocks was the comparison of this to the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that happened in Greenwich more than a century prior. The parallels were disturbing and became a brutal indictment of the modern age of how such tragedies count happen in the pursuit of capitalism and many leftist politicians, most notably Senator Sanders, spoke heavily on the comparisons between the two, the improvements that would be done and the blame resting on the greedy. The seeming resentment at the 1% got an immense injection of fresh anger with the comparisons drawn out.
Rescuers carrying out one of the survivors from the collapsed building
While the incident galavanized the leftist elements of the world and the people, other element proceeded to send them and the rest of the world into a tizzy. That of the death of Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez back in March. From an infection, his death left a power void within Venezuela and it could not have come at a worse time for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. They have been gradually losing influence over the past several years. After the Exxon-Mobil scandal forced a confrontation on the issues of climate change and fossil fuels, the world has been trying to react in different ways to it, especially nations who's primary source of income were fossil fuels. Venezuela in particular would be having to deal with this. Ever since the discovery of the vast petrol supplies in Venezuela, they became the primary export of the South American nation and Chavez used that to fund strong social programs and reforms for the nation. Of course, having such a thing alongside with various potential problems meant Venezuela was easily a balancing act. The Ecological Movement of Venezuela, a green-based party in the nation, began rising in prominence as they advocated for promoting renewable engery and sustainable agriculture, especially as "going green" became more internationally mandated. The failure of the GPP to address this in Venezuela led to serious growing divides and growing exasperation with them. As such, some looked it with some but not alot of surprise in the elections of 2013, which saw Henrique Capriles would beat Nicolás Maduro getting around 5% of the vote more than him. Unsurprisingly, this rocked the nation and Maduro along with the Chavistas did not take this defeat well. Furthermore, the fact that the strict rules around the elections that Chavez prided himself on meant that speaking against it would be insulting him. Maduro's attempts at leading attacks against him through homophobia and antisemitism would end up diminishing him and his group's reputation among leftists. As such, Maduro's popularity plummeted further down, leading to large fractures with the group, with Jorge Arreaza and Diosdado Cabello becoming prominent alternates against Maduro. Capriles along with his key supporters and officials he installed were unable to leave Venezuela though is considered the acting President by most of the nations in the world. Perhaps more surprisingly was the hesitation of nations like Bolivia and Cuba to recognize the legitimacy of the Maduro government. Despite the anti-imperialist sentiment, Maduro did lose and the instability of the party along with a failure to address issues within the nation regarding economic policy have caused them to reconsider support. Russia meanwhile just doubled down on support while China withheld from the decision though rumors speculate they are leaning toward recognizing the Capriles government.
Henrique Capriles Radonski, Acting President of Venezuela.
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